I am officially unemployed / in between jobs (start date April 18), so I’m finally back to playing piano somewhat more regularly now that things have settled. I’m hoping to update at least once more prior to starting my new job… let’s hope that pans out. Anyway, I’ve been making glacial progress with this arrangement and wanted to update before I get too much further. I was off to a pretty good start last month, but I’m now realizing just how much more work is going to go into this and am……. mildly despairing lol. BUT, I think I’ve made some notable progress compared to last time, at least, so there’s that.

Detailed Breakdown

I am notably starting right with the dark and dramatic arpeggios- I haven’t practiced the opening phrase yet so no point recording it at this time. I played with the met at 60 bpm for the first half-ish; 60 is about the limit as of now where I can kinda eke my way through somewhat decently. This take wasn’t the cleanest but I think it’s also an honest one, so I’m okay with the fumbles in the middle.

The opening arpeggios are not consistently even between the two different rhythms (sextuplets vs. 32nd notes), especially in the RH, but it’s kind of related to my fingers just being a little short and not being good enough to play any cleaner, so I’m just… living with it. That’ll be a recurring theme for a lot of this arrangement because I want to finish before I turn 30 lol. The bottom line for this arrangement is that I can either play it in the sense of playing the NOTES and get through it in a reasonable amount of time, or I can dedicate months/years to honing my technique for this piece- I’m obviously going to go with the former.

Anyway, the LH arpeggio at 0:13 is definitely feeling more comfortable than before, which is a good sign. The official recording has a bit of a delayed pause around 0:20 before jumping into the next section, but I didn’t get to play with that since the met was on. For now, I’m prioritizing consistent rhythm and then I’ll be able to play around once everything is locked in. RH octave chords are feeling more comfortable in this section, which also frees up mental bandwidth to babysit my LH which is going ham with the arpeggio.

Lots of stuff happening at 0:21- it’s faster than it was in the previous take, at least. I’ve worked on the RH F octave at 0:27 so the accuracy is a lot higher than before. For whatever reason, I’ve found that just forgetting about it tends to work out better; if I’m consciously thinking about it, then I tend to fumble. The downwards arpeggio in the LH at 0:31 isn’t clean but again, it’s so fast and such a large arpeggio for my hand, I’m just making do with playing the notes. I still need to practice the downbeat at 0:36 for the next phrase- again, if I don’t think about it, then it’s usually fine, but I’m still conscious of it so I tend to choke. I think I just need to get more muscle memory trained into my arms to learn where that opening position is. In general, I’m trying really hard not to accent the top notes or thumbs in the arpeggios, but it’s also really hard to focus on that 100%. It’ll come with practice, I’m sure, but I also know part of it will require a level of practice that I cannot afford as a casual player, so I’m not too torn over the occasional random accents.

I don’t know why I was lagging between hands from 0:46 to 0:54… my lag isn’t usually that bad. Probably some camera freeze. The jumps there are getting easier- still feel insane the higher the bpm goes, but doable. The jump down at 0:54, though- now that’s still very shaky. It’s not too obvious but I actually have gotten into the habit of kicking my left foot out more for this part so I can shift my weight more fully and quickly for that jump (yes, it’s that bad!!).

The chords at 0:55 have come together quite a bit compared to the previous recording, now that I’m comparing side by side. Still having trouble hitting the LH C octave reliably at faster tempos, but I’m definitely getting a feel for that sweet spot (where I don’t have to really do any math and can just reach for it). Just need more practice. I very obviously practiced this section in two halves and I often have a hiccup at 1:06… need to work on smoothing that out. This second half actually looks pretty sick on camera!! I think it might be one of my favorite parts to watch for this take. My hands move way more than I thought, though I guess it makes sense since there’s actually a lot happening in the RH especially. I need to work on RH voicing here now that I’ve learned the notes and have gotten a feel for the macro physical motions. My met is old so I had trouble turning it off on time… and then things quiet down. Listen to how clean those RH octaves are at 1:36… hehe.

The section from 1:41 is largely the same as before; it’s the easiest part of the arrangement. I’ve gotten more comfortable with the repeating note section at 2:08, even though I totally missed the LH interval at the top at 2:21 LOL. I was like NOPE we made it this far, we’re gonna keep goin’!!

Section at 2:36 with the octave chords has come a long way, actually, despite the WRONG NOTES… (SO EMBARRASSING ON CAMERA) I haven’t put any special practice into this part yet, but the sheer number of read-throughs has somehow built in some muscle memory. Just need to get more comfortable with some of the moving RH octave chords, and then clean up that last bit with the E minor chords leading into 3:10.

Now, 3:10… this is where my despair really lies. Thinking about having to go 80+ bpm with these outrageous LH arpeggios literally makes my soul eject itself from my husk of a body… Even just watching the playback is painful LOL, oh gosh you can totally see my LH isn’t used to extended arpeggios at all. I’m hoping that the arpeggio motions will become more comfortable over time with practice, just like the arpeggios from the beginning of the take, but also??? I’m afraid that… won’t happen lol. We’ll see. The little “intervals” at 3:38 are cute and always remind me of the fact that I never cleaned up a similar sequence from Noct’s theme, and then I stumble through the rest of this section- definitely need to practice both hands together more!

3:53 is the height of the arrangement, with fff chords. Nothing special here aside from praying really hard that my hands will be able to double everything reliably. Ramp up with the harp-like arpeggio and then OCTAVE CHORDS GALORE from 4:12. Remarkably, this was one of the bits that I feared most, but it’s actually a lot more manageable than I expected? I said previously that it might be a different story after playing the whole piece, but even after extensive practice- I guess I’m lucky in that the chord shapes are friendly for my hands. Ironically, my LH accuracy for three note chords is far poorer than my RH accuracy for octave chords lol… and then we have the big flourish with the E major arpeggios and final chords.

Bonus: Freestyle Take

While I believe in practicing slowly before taking things faster, I also believe in occasionally going completely freestyle and going as fast as I can just to get a feel for how it’ll be physically at tempo. This helps me (personally) gauge where I am vs. where I want to be. So, this is one of those takes as a bonus; it’s about 30 seconds shorter, if that says anything, though there are also plenty of fun hiccups in between. Didn’t plan to go a specific bpm; the goal was just to go as fast as I could comfortably while still challenging myself, and also not completely mucking up my playing. It actually came out better in some parts than I expected, so I’m happy with it.

Current Thoughts

HOLY that’s a lot of writing LOL I had no idea I’d write that much. I don’t know if this means anything aside from the fact that I just like to write, I guess. Though this is a pretty dense arrangement, so there’s plenty to ramble about.

So looking at some metrics, the clean take is around 4:30, compared to the previous take being 5:30 (if we take out the intro phrase I didn’t record this time around). That means I’ve shaved off a whole minute, which is good news. The bad news is that the official recording is sitting somewhere around 4:07, and that’s WITH the lengthy intro phrase. Sigh. SO, I can say that I’ve made progress, but I guess it’s not as much progress as I would have liked because I’m impatient. But considering that the past few weeks were super irregular for practice, I guess I also can’t complain. I’m just mad I can’t just sightplay this arrangement perfectly at performance tempo lol.

Given that the first half of the piece is already at 60 bpm, it’s really up to that big LH arpeggio section to step it up; that’s going to be a significant portion of the remaining margin time-wise. But also, I just need to speed everything up. I think 72 bpm is attainable, while 80 bpm is my goal. 80 bpm… would be amazing, but I also acknowledge that I’m simply not technically skilled enough to expect it at this point. So stay tuned for a likely lamer rendition at a feeble 72 bpm… assuming I make it that far.

Okay, but that’s enough about what’s to come. I do admit that there’s been a lot of improvement beyond my expectations in terms of just general comfort with the keyboard? To elaborate- last time, I mentioned that my sister thought I was shaking my head at her because that’s how severely I had to swivel my head to track both hands (specifically during the simultaneous arpeggios). Now, I definitely feel way more in control and am not swiveling nearly as much. I think that also helps to just keep me feeling more grounded and it all feeds into me being able to channel more focus into detail, etc. I’m sure this is all part of the practice journey, but it’s still nice to feel and realize such tangible improvement in control.

Another thing is stamina- I’m not as concerned over stamina as I was when I first started learning this. Yes, I’m also still 20 bpm under tempo, but even so, I feel pretty good about my energy usage at this point and how it’ll probably feel as I continue to ramp up. In the end, it’s a pretty short piece at about 4 minutes, with that conveniently placed lyrical section in the middle, which gives me plenty of time to catch my breath.

Really, my biggest hangup now is the big LH arpeggios and bringing those up to anything faster than, like, 45 bpm. Hopefully my diligent practice to come will also come in handy with future arrangements that have huge arpeggios… I’ve learned all the notes, so at this point, it’s really just continuing to practice smart and also carefully as I chip away at this section by section.